


chances are only what we make them (and all I need)

by Rei_Rei (anti60ne)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 12:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anti60ne/pseuds/Rei_Rei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baekhyun believed he was irreparable, but Jongin insisted on piecing him back together.</p><p>**Rewrite of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/960501">this</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chances are only what we make them (and all I need)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Chances by Five for Fighting (to be consistent with the original oneshot)
> 
> Alternative ending inspired by [this](http://connotativewords.tumblr.com/post/74021320683/i-know-youve-lost-your-faith-in-me-and-although), from which the quote in the end was extracted.

He met Jongin when he wasn't looking, literally; he had just come out of the convenience store, shoving bills into his wallet when he walked right into someone, forehead hitting the taller person's chest. He yelped and looked up in a grimace. The flustered apology barely made it out of his throat that had suddenly closed up when he looked into those eyes.

Jongin had waved it off with a smile, and Baekhyun stood in front of the store, the automatic sensing door opening and closing behind him as his eyes trailed after Jongin, his mind reeling.

Baekhyun didn't see Jongin again until a few days later, in front of the same convenience store. He was extremely confused when he heard his name being called and turned around to face the gorgeous stranger that he had bumped into the other day. He must have had let his mouth hang open, because Jongin released a half-snort half-chuckle, his eye twinkling in amusement. Jongin handed him his driver's license, which had apparently fallen out of his wallet when he walked into Jongin. He said thanks with flushed cheeks, and was about to walk away when Jongin called him again, and he didn't get a chance to revel in the way his name rolled off Jongin's tongue when Jongin asked if he wanted to get some coffee.

It was so cliched that Baekhyun would cringe later on upon recalling the incident, but at the time, he was too smitten to care.

But he remembered everything about their first date, though Jongin would later argue that it was technically not their first date, and Baekhyun would agree, yes, he was just trying his luck with a cheesy pick-up line. But it worked, they both agreed with an unspoken consensus.

Baekhyun remembered, with painful detail, the way Jongin held the door for him, how he had stuttered when Jongin asked what he wanted to drink, the song that was playing in the cafe (Undo by Casker, so very appropriate for the state he was in), the couple that sat behind their table with the girl resting her head on the boy's shoulder and a content smile on her face.

He remembered how his Americano was too bitter for his liking, but Jongin let him try his hot cocoa and the sweetness of chocolate mixed with perhaps a little taste of Jongin made him forget the acrid aftertaste.

He remembered how he laughed at everything Jongin said, and the way Jongin's eyes disappeared into crescents that stirred the tides inside his chest.

There was so much sunshine in Jongin's eyes that Baekhyun believed, for a moment and many days afterward, that he could finally put down his umbrella. Instead, he would pick up a bucket and amass happiness until it overflowed, and Jongin would give him another bucket until there was no more.

The buckets filled much more quickly and easily than he had thought possible. One filled up when they lay in bed on a lazy morning-after and Jongin's fingers snaked in between his own, quietly and slowly, and all he felt was a warmth that wasn't his and that was perfectly okay.

Another filled up when they were in the movie theatre, the bright images of some movie (the content of which promptly forgotten) flashing across the jumbo screen as he felt Jongin's head slumping on his shoulder in an easy surrender to fatigue, and his thoughts were chased away by something growing inside his chest, propelling him to kiss Jongin's hair, the scent of his own shampoo lingering on his lips.

Yet another filled, instantly to the brim, when Jongin came up behind him, interrupting him in the midst of stirring a pot of noodles, and enveloped him with long arms as a chin nuzzled beside his neck, breathing affection into his skin. He had closed his eyes then, his hand still whirling the spatula languidly as a content smile easily found its way to his face and stayed longer than the last one.

\--

Baekhyun thought Jongin was the answer to everything, that he no longer needed to try so hard to figure out the mystery that was himself and everything that had crept into that locked closet inside his chest, because Jongin made it okay to not know everything. But Baekhyun had underestimated his own fear, the fear of loving fully and beyond what he could lose.

And it hurt a little more for Baekhyun because he had always had trouble remembering the sunshines, his thoughts constantly running back to the rains, as if his mind would much rather be drenched and shivering.

But it hurt a lot more for Jongin because though he dared to dream, he saw no chance of forevers in Baekhyun's eyes that barely looked beyond today, a gaze fixed on yesterday and the damage done before that. It didn't take him long to discover that all of his giving and Baekhyun's taking had become a happiness reached by compromise, a contentment void of feeling. He tried to put an overcoat on Baekhyun, but all he wanted was to be naked, unconsciously struggling to be freed from the warmth that he needed.

And because Baekhyun thought he was incorrigible, beyond repair, and Jongin had no say in that even though he had the right tools inside his hands.

\--

Their first fight was, oddly, not about something trivial and mundane, not something like Jongin drinking his milk straight out of the carton, or something like Baekhyun forgetting to reply to Jongin's text and leaving him hanging (which would have been even worse in another sense of the expression but fortunately for Baekhyun, that never happened).

Their first fight was a real argument about something much larger than how much their emotions could handle, more so for Jongin because he could not understand.

\--

_"Stop trying to fix me. You're just wasting your time."_

_Jongin stared at him, his voice gone._

_"You know, you can be really fucking cruel sometimes."_

_Jongin whipped around and picked up his jacket, slashing it through the air as he took quick strides toward the door. The door slammed shut behind him as Baekhyun slumped onto the bed, his head sinking into his hands._

\--

More fights of the sort followed. Then it screeched to a stop as a wall sprang up between them and three days went by before a word, vocalized or written, was exchanged.

Baekhyun had seen it coming. He just didn't know he would be the one to make it happen.

It was raining that day; he remembered because he had lost a few minutes staring out the window, watching raindrops bead on the glass, after he sent the text to Jongin.

 _We should talk_ , it read.

They met at Abby's diner, for a lack of a better choice as neither of them wanted to give more thought than their splitting head would allow. Baekhyun ordered an Americano, black. It would later remain unsipped, unrivaled to the bitterness he was drowning in.

Jongin had been quiet since he entered the diner, a few beats after Baekhyun received his coffee. He found Baekhyun by his auburn hair and sat down across from him, eyes on the table. Baekhyun looked up. He wished he hadn't caught the glimpse of choking dread in Jongin's eyes.

Baekhyun brought his fidgety hands above the table, and his fingers began to draw neglected circles on the mug.

Jongin watched, clenching his own hands under the table so he wouldn't reach across and take the cold, restless fingers, trying to warm them like he used to.

"I think we should..." Baekhyun began, struggling to find the right word in between shallow breaths. "Stop."

 

_We should stop trying so hard to make each other happy._  
 _You should stop trying to make me whole._  
 _I should stop holding onto you when you could warm someone else._

__

Jongin kept silent. He looked up and peered into Baekhyun’s eyes, the pain in them raw and abject. He knew why Baekhyun was doing this – he thought he was being a blindfold to Jongin, keeping him in the darkness when Jongin could have all the light in the world. Baekhyun wanted him to regain his vision and see the light.

But to Jongin, Baekhyun was his light.

“You’re wrong, you know,” Jongin said in a soft voice. Baekhyun’s eyes snapped wide open in surprise as Jongin continued. “You’re broken, but you’re not hopeless. Even if I can’t put all the pieces back together, I want to try.”

Baekhyun’s face fell, and his eyes lowered to the tabletop. Under the fluorescent light, he could make out tiny cracks in the surface, undetectable by cursory glances.  He thought about how his damage was much larger than these cracks, running for miles long around his heart.

“What if—what if you get hurt in the process?” Baekhyun replied, trying to make Jongin understand, to convince him that he wasn’t worth the effort. “It’s like fixing a shattered vase, you know? You’ll get your hands cut, and you’ll bleed, and you’ll—“

“So what?” Jongin cut in, voice louder and firmer than before and Baekhyun was taken aback. “So what if I get my hands cut? I don’t mind. You know why? Because I love you. I love you even if you’re beyond repair, even if you think you’re like a damaged good that no one else wants.”

Jongin took a deep breath and reached for Baekhyun’s hand across the table. He rubbed his thumb over the knuckle, just like he used to, and Baekhyun felt himself shaking, eyes smarting from tears that threatened to spill. Jongin let go of Baekhyun’s hand and leaned over, holding his face with warm hands as a thumb traced over his trembling lips. Baekhyun saw nothing but devoted adoration in the ocean of Jongin’s eyes. It was confusing and unsettling but most of all, it was soothing, and Baekhyun thought he didn’t need anything else.

“I can’t promise that I’ll fix everything to the point of perfection, but I promise you it’ll be beautiful.”

Baekhyun closed his eyes when Jongin kissed him, all the unsaid words streaming past Jongin’s lips and down his airways, filling his lungs with faith in what could be beautiful.       

 

 

_I’ll bleed for you daily, until I piece everything back together._

_And I know that it won’t ever be as perfect as it once was, but I promise you that it will be more beautiful than ever before*._


End file.
